Tipping It
by Verbal Kint10
Summary: 11 Drabbles: The Gregory House Pain Scale


**Zero**

Take Wilson to Disneyworld. When he asks you why, tell him it's because he's never been, but say it like you're lying. You drive. After four hours or so of intermittent silence that wraps its way around various pieces of nurse's station gossip and Wilson's new Ben Folds CD, Wilson asks you why again, so you tell him you're on etorphine because it's good enough for elephants and therefore good enough for you. He lectures you for the next three days, and you don't mind because for some reason the sound of his voice is less annoying when you aren't distracted. You ride Space Mountain. Twice.

**One**

Pinch yourself, just in case. Then go fly a kite in the park; maybe take a jogging start. As long as the sky has your attention, you look at the clouds, and you watch as the cotton-like shapes poke their way out of the blue. You skip lunch to successfully identify a liver, the left-hemisphere of some archaic homo sapien's brain, and five ovarian cysts. You stop just as the sun goes down, and by then the only things that are left are you and the local hoodlums on dog-powered skateboards. It's nice out, and you think you might stay.

**Two**

Catch up on some sleep while you can. Take a Tylenol PM or two, because you won't be able to shut your eyes until you've convinced yourself it's all temporary, and it is temporary. Hell, put a plant that you won't water on your nightstand so you'll remember. Watch it die while you drift off to sleep suspiciously. You try very hard not to dream, but there's Wilson, old and limping more pronouncedly than you ever were, reminding you that nothing lasts. And at 11AM, when your stomach aches with hunger and you can actually feel it, cherish it. Go back to sleep.

**Three**

Go to a bar. Sit patiently while Wilson gets slightly drunker than you. The woman three stools down is pointing her giant pair of eyes in your direction, and you look back wondering if those eyes are even real, if they're just the enormous googly leftovers from a second grade crafts project. But they're a nice shade of aquamarine and you can imagine them in very close proximity to your eyes for one night only. You give her a nod, a roguish smile. Tonight, call Wilson a cab and walk her to her car. You're only limping a little bit.

**Four**

Take the elevator (out of habit), but you'll have to remind yourself to take the stairs later. Definitely take the stairs later if it doesn't start raining or hailing or snowing, or if the world doesn't abruptly spin off its axis and into nothingness like an 8 ball in a dark pool hall. And even if it does, you might feel like risking it. You might find a spare father to get your ass in gear when you're wincing instead of walking. If not, almost miss him. You can feel that it will rain tomorrow, but this is today.

**Five**

Sit a while and think. Rain covers your office with old wax paper, and the slick air makes you feel slightly too moldy to eat. Outside, a bus squeals to a stop, and you hear the throbbing of its brakes while you feel it. The moisture seeps into your skin like you're one giant sprained ankle in a lukewarm tub. Take a walk down the hall, away from the windows. It's just after lunch and Wilson's probably in the lounge. Play foosball, and tell yourself it's only until the sun comes out. You weren't planning to work on your tan anyhow.

**Six**

Go to work. Save a life. You're only just past what you can ignore, which is good, because this way you can pretend like you're ignoring it. If you need a break, take it in the elevator, at the end of long corridors, in the morgue. For now, you have an audience, and while you never asked to be this good of an actor, you are. You're brilliant this way. Keep hiding your winces in your red coffee mug, awaiting your invisible prize of solitude. And it'll be hard, but you'll be okay. Somewhat unfortunately, you always are.

**Seven**

Wilson will know by now, and while you can think of a dozen suitable reasons why that's okay, it's not okay. You've become so naïve about how naïve he is that you told him to go away, as if you're in the shower naked instead of in your office bundled up like preschooler in winter. As if he wasn't going to leave you alone anyway. So now you're both alone, knowing, and that's your fault. You could've been together, pretending, if you could only suck it up. If you could only pretend your nerves aren't swimming in battery acid.

**Eight**

Don't think about it. Get Taub out, and the others won't talk about it. Bring up the patient and they follow your lead, and somewhere between Alexander Syndrome and Cerebrotendineous Xanthomatosis, you stretch out your leg. Your quadriceps constrict under the pressure of your blue jeans and never release because it's already too late. You tell the team to do an MRI just before the knots of connective tissue in your thigh muscle break free from your femur, wriggling and writhing like you'd be if the walls weren't made of glass. Instead, you grab the armrest and don't let go.

**Nine**

You fake the runny nose, but the other symptoms are already there. When Wilson shows up at your apartment because you called in sick and God forbid the man ever believe you have the flu, he can hear you retching from outside the front door. The vomit's on the comforter, not the floor, which should have been his first tip-off that you were lying when you told him you're detoxing. Detoxing's better than this. You can make it to the toilet when you're detoxing. He stays, and he still doesn't notice because he's not you. It's what you love about him.

**Ten**

Remember to tell Wilson not to vandalize your grave with flowers. And if he does, and he will, tell him they'd better be yellow carnations. As you recall, they signify disappointment, and you want to leave one last puzzle for somebody else to solve. A passing florist, perhaps. Remember to tell him you want the smallest headstone they've got, and tell him to be grateful for your eternal thriftiness. But he knows you're not thrifty. You just don't want monuments you don't deserve. Of course, you won't remember to tell him anything. Fuck it; you can't talk without the morphine.


End file.
